Texas Outlaws: Billy (4 page)

Who? What? When? Where?

Billy’s arms tightened around her and suddenly the last thing she wanted to do was spend the rest of her night chained to her computer, checking facts or slogging another story about yet another actress who’d ditched rehab and gone on a party spree.

No, what she really wanted was to stay right here and snuggle down into the warmth wrapped around her.

All the more reason to get up
.

The last thing she needed was to fall asleep and risk an awkward morning after. While she’d fallen out of practice thanks to her change of heart, she’d still had enough one-night stands to know that she didn’t want to get stuck facing Billy Chisholm the morning after.

She had no doubt he would tell her thanks and hit the road faster than she could blink. He’d made his intentions crystal clear, and so had she. She didn’t want more. At least, not from him.

Now if he’d been any other man...

Maybe a bank executive or a photojournalist or anyone but a Stetson-wearing bull rider. Then she might have thought about getting to know him.

But she already knew more than enough.

Billy Chisholm wasn’t her type.

She knew that, but with him so close, the scent of sexy male filling her head, she had the gut feeling that she wouldn’t be all that happy to see him go.

The thought struck and she gave herself a mental kick. She didn’t have to think about him walking out because she intended to walk out first.

Soon.

At the same time, it had been such a long day and she really was worn out. Exhausted. Might as well take advantage of the warmth and close her eyes for just a few seconds. A cat nap.

Then she was up and out of there.

Guaranteed.

5

“W
HERE
THE
HELL
are you?” Livi’s frantic voice carried over the line the minute Sabrina answered her cell phone. “You’re not hurt, are you? Oh, crap, you’re not dead, are you?”

“Yes, and I’m speaking to you from the hereafter.”

“Very funny. Seriously, I all but freaked when I woke up this morning and realized you hadn’t come back to the motel room.”

“Morning?” Sabrina blinked against the blinding light pouring through the open curtains, and panic seeped through her. It
was
morning.

She’d slept with Billy Chisholm.

Slept
slept.

There’d been no creeping out before dawn. No “Thanks, but gotta go.” Or “I really appreciated it, but have a nice life.” No, she’d snuggled right up next to him and closed her eyes and now the sun was up and she was late.

“
So?
” Livi’s voice pushed past the panic beating at her senses. “How was it?”

“How was what?” She glanced at the clock on the nightstand. It was eight-thirty in the morning. Not only had she fallen asleep, but she’d slept past her usual 7:00 a.m. And all because of a man.

A cowboy.

“Did you get lucky?”

More like
un
lucky. Of all the available men in town—the reporters and the out-of-town fans—she’d hooked up and fallen asleep with a homegrown, certified, grade A
cowboy
.

“Well?” Livi prompted.

“I really need to go.”

A thought seemed to strike and her friend’s voice rose an octave. “You’re not still with him, are you?”

Was she?

Her gaze ping-ponged around the room, looking for boots or clothes or
something
before stalling on the open bathroom door. She strained her ears for some sound, but there was no water running. No footsteps. Just the distant sound of a vacuum cleaner humming from a few rooms down.

“Of course not.” She ignored the disappointment that niggled at her, pushed the blankets to the side and scrambled from the bed. She grabbed her undies, which lay on the floor a few feet away. “I’ll meet you in a few minutes. Where are you?”

“The diner next door to the motel, remember? That’s where we agreed to meet.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Cowboys have to eat, right?” Livi went on. “Plus, they’ve got the best coffee in town and you know how I need my coffee. Lots of coffee.”

“Save a few cups for me. I’ll be there in ten.”

She spent the next few minutes plucking her clothes up off the floor and damning herself for forgetting the all-important fact that she’d agreed to a one-night stand only. The key word being
night
. She’d had every intention of being the first one to hit the road after the deed had been done, the first one saying goodbye, walking out, calling the shots.

She certainly hadn’t meant to close her eyes. To get too comfortable. To forget for even a split second that cowboy Billy was not the morning-after type and that, even more, neither was she.

Luckily that all-important fact hadn’t slipped
his
mind.

She spared a quick glance around the room. There was no suitcase. No personal items scattered across the dresser. No clothes hanging in the closet. And definitely no note. He’d taken everything with him as if he meant to never come back.

And the problem is?

No problem. Sure, she preferred being the one out the door first, but at least he’d had the good sense not to linger and make things that much more awkward.

Anxiety pushed her that much faster and she pulled on her clothes quickly. She was getting out of here now, and she wasn’t going to think that maybe, just maybe, it might have been nice if he’d at least said goodbye.

Forget worrying over one measly cowboy. She had one hundred and fifty-two to think about.

Slipping out of the motel room, she ignored the knowing smile on the maid’s face as she rushed down the walkway and rounded the corner toward her own room. A quick shower and change, and she would hit the soda machine next to the ice maker before the diner. She wasn’t facing Livi and a room full of Stetsons until she’d calmed down completely. To do that, she needed sugar. Lots of sugar.

A soda. Maybe a bag of M&Ms.

Forget a fully stocked minibar for the source. The Lost Gun Motel was like any other small-town inn she’d ever known.

That meant vending machines instead of minibars. Homegrown soda fountains and pharmacies instead of McDonald’s or a CVS. A family-owned general store instead of the brand-name, big-box type.

Sure enough, she rounded another corner and spotted an old Coke machine stuffed with glass-bottled sodas. A crate sat next to the rusted-out monster, the slots half filled with empties.

Her gaze snagged on an Orange Crush and she could practically taste the sugary sweetness on her tongue. As if it had been just yesterday that she’d given up her favorite drink, instead of eight years. The day she’d turned eighteen and left town in her granddaddy’s ancient Bonneville.

She’d never looked back since.

She’d never wanted to.

The soda had been just as bad for her as the small-minded hometown where she’d grown up, and so giving it up had been a no-brainer. She’d switched to lattes and bright lights and a great big city full of zillions of people who didn’t know what a big pile of unreliability her father had been. There were no knowing looks when she walked into the corner drugstore. No one gossiping behind her back when she went into the nearest Starbucks. In L.A. she was just one of the masses, and she liked it that way. She liked her privacy.

Which was why she’d stayed away from home all these years.

Since her mother had dropped the bomb that she was getting married—again—to a local wrangler from one of the nearby ranches, despite the fact that she’d walked that road once before. Arlene had obviously learned nothing the first time with Sabrina’s father. He’d been a ranch hand. Worth his salt when it came to horses, but worthless when it came to being a good husband and father. He’d cheated on her for years before finally running off with a barmaid from the local honky-tonk when Sabrina had been thirteen.

Her mother had been devastated. She’d cried for months, then she’d spent the next few years telling herself that he was coming back, that it was just temporary. Eventually, she’d faced the truth. Not that it had done any good. She’d turned around and hooked up with loser number two. Different time. Different man. Same story.

Sabrina hadn’t been in any hurry to watch a repeat of the past. When her eighteenth birthday had rolled around, she’d packed up and left her mother, her mother’s new cowboy and her small-town life in the dust.

Her resentment toward Arlene and her cheating father had faded over the years, but she’d never been able to bring herself to go home. To the same double-wide where she’d listened to her mother cry herself to sleep night after night after Sabrina’s father had walked away. The place had never felt like home.

It never would, so there was no sense rushing back and pretending. Instead, she’d accepted the truth and turned her back on Sugar Creek like a piece of gum that had lost its flavor.

Sure, she’d seen her mother a few times over the years, but always on neutral ground. Arlene had flown out to California once. They’d met in Vegas another time. Colorado for Christmas a few years back.

She’d heard through the grapevine that her father had ended up single again, working on a horse ranch in Montana. Not that she cared. The day he’d walked away from her had been the day that he’d died in her mind, and so she had no desire to see him.

But as much as she hated him, she owed him, as well. He’d at least taught her one important thing—to never, ever fall for the same type of man.

A man who didn’t know the meaning of the word
commitment.

Which was why she was chalking last night up to a good time. A temporary good time that was now over and done with.

No matter how much it had felt otherwise.

She slipped inside her motel room and spent the next few minutes getting dressed, before she heard a knock on the door.

“Maid service,” came the voice from the other side a split second before the hinges creaked and the knob twisted. A woman with bleached-blond hair and too much red lipstick came up short in the doorway. “It’s nearly noon,” the woman said as she noted the towel wrapped around Sabrina. “Folks are usually up and about by now.”

Folks,
as in the locals. But Sabrina wasn’t a local, which meant she fell into the same class as a communist/sociopath/deviant puppy kicker. Small towns like Sugar Creek and Lost Gun were close-knit. Folks didn’t take too kindly to outsiders, and they certainly didn’t trust them. Which was why Sabrina made a point to give Olive—according to the name tag—a big smile before retreating to the bathroom to get dressed, and an even bigger tip when she grabbed her purse to leave fifteen minutes later. Not that it made her any less of a communist/sociopath/deviant puppy kicker. It just meant that she wouldn’t have to beg for an extra set of towels. And maybe, just maybe, she might get an additional name or two to pursue for her database.

“So he’s the hottest single male in town?” she asked Olive a few minutes later, after complimenting her lipstick and matching nail polish, and slipping her another five.

The woman shrugged as she smoothed Sabrina’s sheets. “I don’t know about hot, honey, but Martin Trawick is surely single, now that his fifth divorce is final, that is.”

“He’s been married five times?” Unease rolled through her.

“Six, actually, but we don’t count the first one on account of it was old man Talley who officiated and he ain’t an actual clergyman. Just tells folks that so’s he can get the clergyman’s discount special at the diner. It’s an olive-loaf sandwich with fresh pickle chips. Anyhow, Martin is always looking for his next wife. He’d probably be tickled to sign up for your service.”

Okay, he wasn’t prime grade A marriage material. At the same time, they weren’t promoting an actual
marriage
service. She and her roommates had invested a lot of time in their mission statement, which outlined their venture—namely, an interactive website where women could go to meet, not marry, cowboys. Which meant the only criteria she had to establish was that any prospective candidate was a Wrangler-wearing, cowboy-hat-tipping, boot-stomping country boy.

“What does Martin actually do for a living?”

“Owns a pecan farm outside town. Actually, he owns a sixth of the pecan farm on account of he had to split it with each of his exes, but he’s still got a good hundred acres of his own.”

Okay, he wasn’t a pro bull rider, but he
was
country.
Check
.

“Does he wear boots?”

“You’re in Lost Gun, sugar. Who doesn’t wear boots?”

Check.

“How about a cowboy hat?”

“I reckon when he’s out tending pecans and it’s hot.”

Check.

Sabrina smiled. “Where can I find him?”

6

“N
OW
,
THAT
’
S
WHAT
I’m talking about!”

Eli let loose a loud whoop as Billy climbed to his feet and dusted off his backside. Meanwhile, several wranglers chased the bull he’d just ridden for eight seconds toward the gate leading to the holding pen.

“If you ride like that in the semifinals on Saturday, you’re sure to zip straight through to the finals.”

If
.

The word hung in the air because as much as Billy’s pride told him he was a shoo-in, he knew better. While he knew he had the talent, other factors came into play when it came to a successful ride. With all the publicity from the
Famous Texas Outlaws
episode, Billy had been tense. Sleep deprived. Anxious. Even if he was damn good at hiding it.

Still, his numbers had been down in the preliminaries and while he’d had a good ride, good wasn’t enough.

To make it to the Lost Gun finals, he had to be great.

And to make it all the way to the finals in Vegas in November?

He had to be flawless.

“That was damn near perfect,” Eli said as he clapped Billy on the back and followed him out of the corral. Die-hard fans packed the training facility and cameras flashed left and right.

“Way to go, Billy!”

“Awesome ride!”

“You’re the best!”

The comments came at him from all angles and fed the excitement already pumping through his veins.

Not that Billy was letting the praise go to his head. He knew that the past eight seconds meant nothing if he couldn’t pull it off again on Saturday in front of the judges. That meant the next week of practice had to be this good. Or better.

Fat chance
.

The doubt trotted into his head before he could close the gate, and unease settled low in his belly. Not because his success just now had anything to do with a certain brunette. Sure, the sex had relieved his tense muscles and given him the best sleep he’d had in a helluva long time, but she could have been anyone.

“Whatever you did last night, you better make damn sure you do it again.” Eli retrieved a bottled water from a nearby cooler and handed it to Billy. “Rinse and repeat, buddy. Rinse and repeat.”

If only.

He ignored the crazy thought and made his way around the chutes toward the cowboy who waited on the other side of the railing.

His brother Jesse wore a serious expression that said
major badass
.

But Billy wasn’t the least bit intimidated. At six foot three, Jesse had only an inch and a half on him. And when it came to attitude? Billy put the
b
in badass.

“Not too shabby,” Jesse remarked when Billy reached him. “I might have taught you something, after all.” He grinned and his violet eyes twinkled.

The same eyes that stared back at Billy in the bathroom mirror every morning. But while they had the same eyes and a similar build, that’s where the likeness ended. Billy had sun-kissed blond hair, an easy smile and a shitload of Southern charm.

Jesse, not so much.

He’d always been the serious one, sick of his past and eager to leave it behind for something bigger and better. Which was why it had surprised everyone when Jesse had announced last week that he was not only staying in Lost Gun permanently but rebuilding on the old property that had once housed the one-room shack where they’d grown up.

The reason for his sudden change of heart?

The petite blonde standing on the opposite side of the corral, snapping pictures of the various bulls and riders as they exited the chute.

Jesse and Gracie Stone had had a thing for each other back in high school. A fire that had burned so fierce and bright that neither time nor a blanket of stubbornness had managed to smother. They’d kept their distance up until a few weeks ago when Gracie had warned Jesse about the renewed interest in Silas and the “Where Are They Now?” episode that had been about to air. One face-to-face and
bam,
the flames had reignited and blazed that much hotter. They were inseparable now. They’d moved into Gracie’s house over on Main Street while they built their very own place on the ruins of Silas Chisholm’s old house.

The news couldn’t have come a moment too soon for Billy. While Jesse had been eager to forget the past, Billy had always been more inclined to remember.

To keep in mind the unreliable man his father had once been, and even more, to keep a tight hold on the man he knew lurked deep inside himself.

“You’re my blood,”
he’d heard Silas say too many times to count.
“Just ’cause you think you’re so high and mighty, don’t make it true. You’ll see. I ain’t cut out for the nine-to-five life, and neither are you. There are too many options out there. Too many ways to make it really big to waste your time with some penny-ass job.”

The words had been spoken to Jesse, who’d been thirteen at the time and the caretaker to his two younger brothers, but Billy had been the one to take the statement to heart.

Silas Chisholm had never been able to settle down and straighten up his life. There’d been no finding a steady job and building a home for his boys and meeting a nice woman to share his life with. He’d been a lowlife who’d floated from one two-bit crime to the next, always looking for the next big thing. A better opportunity. A bigger payoff.

Ditto for Billy.

Not the crime, part. Hell, no. He was one hundred percent legit and damn proud of it.

It was his inability to commit in his personal life that made him a chip off the old block. It had started back in kindergarten when he hadn’t been able to choose between the monkey bars and the slide, and continued through middle school—baseball or football?—and high school, where he’d accepted not one, but four invitations to his senior prom.

Even now, he couldn’t seem to pick a shade of blue for the tile in his new bathroom, or figure out whether to add an extra bedroom to the cabin or a man cave. He could see the value in both, the payoff, and that was the problem. Billy hated to narrow his options. To miss out on something better. To
commit
.

Now, bulls were different.

They were the only thing he managed to focus on, to follow through with, to go balls to the wall without a second thought. A championship was the one thing he wanted with a dead certainty that he’d never felt for anyone or anything.

Until last night.

He nixed the crazy thought and ignored Eli’s voice echoing in his ear.
“Rinse and repeat.”

Like hell.

He’d made it out of the motel room this morning without a confrontation or the dreaded “Call me, okay?”

Uh, no.

Last night had been just that—
last
night.
One
night. End of story.

“If you ride like that in the semifinals,” Jesse went on, drawing his full attention, “you just might land yourself a spot in the final round.”

“There’s no
if,
bro,” Billy said with his usual bravado. “I
will
ride like that. That purse is mine, and so is your title.”

“I hope so, but all the positive affirmation can’t change the past few days and the fact that you sucked big-time in the first go-round.” Jesse shook his head. “What the hell happened?”

“I was running on fumes. Tired. Stressed. You know how it is.”

“And now?”

Billy shrugged. “I finally got a decent night’s sleep is all.”

Jesse arched an eyebrow. “Jack Daniels or a double dose of Sleepy Time?”

“Don’t I wish.” Jesse arched an eyebrow and Billy shrugged. “You don’t want to know. Listen, are you really serious about tonight?” He shifted the subject to the voice mail Jesse had left for him earlier that day. “You want me out at Big Earl Jessup’s place?”

Jesse nodded. “At sundown. And if you see Cole, make sure you remind him. I left a voice mail, but he’s got semifinals today in bucking broncs, so he probably hasn’t checked his messages.”

Billy eyed him. “You going to tell me what this is all about?”

“Tonight.” Jesse motioned to the bull being loaded into a nearby chute. “You’d better get back to work.” He winked. “You need all the practice you can get.”

But it wasn’t practice that Billy desperately needed.

He realized that as he spent the rest of the day busting his ass atop the meanest bulls in the county. His skill, his technique, his drive—it was all there. In spades. He’d just been too tired to shine.

No, what he
really
needed was another six hours of uninterrupted sleep courtesy of a certain brunette with a vibrant pink-and-white Hello Kitty tattoo on the slope of her left breast.

Not that he was admitting as much.

Any woman, he reminded himself. He’d been so hard up that any woman would have had the same effect.

And he knew just how to prove it.

* * *

“A
ND
I
WANT
A
MAN
with dark hair and blue eyes. And he has to be at least six feet. And have all his own teeth. And no bunions. And I need him by next Saturday night, 7:00 p.m., sharp,” announced the elderly woman who’d hobbled up to Sabrina’s table at the Fat Cow Diner.

The woman wore her silver-white hair in a short bob, her round body stuffed into an aqua tracksuit and white tennis shoes. “The rodeo committee is hosting their Senior Sweetheart dance and I need a date,” she went on. “They do it simultaneous with the bull-riding semifinals on account of no one down at the senior center can watch the event on account of all the pacemakers and stents and they need every available EMS worker focused on the riders in case they get hurt. The name’s Melba Rose Cummins, like the diesel engine but no relation. I’m a shoo-in for queen.” She indicated the silver pin attached to the collar of her jacket. “I was princess last year and princess always wins queen second time around.”

“Unless you’re Shirley Hart,” chimed in the woman standing next to her. She had the same silver-haired bob—a testimony to the weekly special over at the Hair Saloon—but she wore a hot-pink tracksuit that hung loosely on her thin frame. “Poor Shirley won princess six years in a row on account of she had bad eyesight and refused to wear her glasses onstage. Kept walking into the podium during evening wear and knocking over the mic stand, which totally killed her score. But she finally saved up her social security checks and got herself some of that fancy LASIK surgery.” She shook her head. “Poor thing was so sure that seven would be her lucky number. But then she up and had a heart attack. Keeled over two weeks before the competition and that was that.”

“Nobody wants to hear about poor Shirley,” Melba said. “This is about me.”

The pink track suit shrugged. “All’s I’m sayin’ is if that had been me and I woulda spent that kind of money, I would have made sure they had my eyes open when they laid me to rest. My name’s Louise Talley, by the way.”

“Here’s the address where I need him to pick me up,” Melba handed over a slip of paper that smelled like a mixture of mothballs and dry-cleaning fluid.

“I’m sorry,” Livi started, “but we’re not an escort service. We run a website for women looking to meet cowboys.”

“I don’t care if he’s a cowboy as long as he’s in good shape,” Louise said.

“That’s nice, but we can’t guarantee someone to pick you up next Saturday night—”

“He can meet me there,” Melba cut in. “Just make sure he wears a tie. He’ll have to walk me across the stage.” She reached for her white patent-leather purse. “Cash or credit?”

“We can’t—” Sabrina started, but Livi held up a hand.

“Cash.”

Melba unearthed a coin purse and stared at the two dollar bills inside. “I’m afraid I’ll have to go to the ATM.”

“We’ll be here waiting.”

“What are you doing?” Sabrina asked when the two old women had disappeared.

“Getting rid of them.”

“But they’ll come back.”

“And we won’t be here.” She motioned to the waitress. “Check, please. This place is a dead end,” she told Sabrina. “Let’s head over to the rodeo grounds. Maybe we’ll have better luck there.”

“That seems kind of rude.”

“You know what’s rude? The fact that we’ve explained our business over a zillion times and we keep getting these ridiculous requests. It says right on the pamphlet—meet the cowboy of your dreams. Meet. Not date. Or marry. Or molest. All we do is set up a meet.”

“Maybe we can at least find her a prospect before next week. The actual date would be up to him at that point.”

“Are you kidding me? We’ve got bigger fish to fry. I only managed to snag three profiles this morning. That coupled with the two I picked up last night leaves one hundred and forty-seven more. At this rate, we’ll be over a hundred shy by our deadline. We have to speed up, not slow down and play escort service for the Lost Gun seniors.”

“You’re right.” But that didn’t mean Sabrina wasn’t going to at least keep her eyes open for a prospect. She told Melba Rose as much when she caught her coming out of the feed store next door, cash in hand. “I can’t make any promises, but I’ll try.”

“That’s good enough for me.” Melba made to hand her the cash, but Sabrina waved it away. “If I come up with someone, you can pay the usual posting fee after the fact.”

“Next Saturday at seven,” Melba reminded her. “And I’m negotiable on the teeth.”

“That’s good to know.”